GMAN-GAMES: XBox Live Privacy Issues

Pass it on

Comments:

It's easy to turn off.

Greg, your paranoia is unjustified. Are you a MSFT hater or something? It's really easy to turn off, and the system doesn't track many of the things you mentioned:

1. Does live list music or movies I've watched? - No.

2. Would I ever...showing too much time spent on Live? - No, it does display the time spent playing.

3. Does live list music or movies I've watched? - No.

4. Could I be refused to be allowed to adopt because my Live record shows I played Siren which features child abuse? - This just seems like unwarranted speculation...

If you don't want people to see what you're doing, just turn it off. You don't have to broadcast anything. (see the privacy statement if you don't believe me: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/legal/privacystateme
nt.htm)

Why am I an authority?

1. I actually have a 360. It's a great platform that people should really take a look at.

2. My wife works on the 360 team.

posted by TrentDecember 7, 2005 at 17:38 [ e ]

Just a quick followup from my previous post...I want to double underscore this line from the privacy statement for you:

"Except as described in this statement, we will not disclose your personal information outside of Microsoft and its controlled subsidiaries and affiliates without your consent."

Any moron who consents to displaying his information and then complains about it just looks like an alarmist wacko who just wants to hate at the people who put all their hard work into the project.

posted by TrentDecember 7, 2005 at 17:47 [ e ]

Simple

Don't use greggman as your Xbox Live handle and you should be fine ;P
How about "p-man"?
It doubles as a dajare too!

posted by notJonnyRamDecember 7, 2005 at 22:00 [ e ]

No, I'm not an MS hater and I'm not dissing 360. It was just an interesting thought. I think Live is the coolest thing ever and I think the medals and other records are awesome as well. But, everything has it's negatives as well.

So it doesn't show time spent. But it does show all your medals. If you have 6000 of them you clearly spend a lot of time playing games. It does show medals for whatever the developer wants to make them for so it is possible there could be GTA3 like medals like the [X] Slept with and killed prostitute medal).

As to turning it off, that's not the point. I wouldn't want to turn it off because I think it's cool and I'd want people to see my medals. Except, if I was to play something ---embarrasing---. So, is it an all or nothing thing or does Live ask for every medal received if you want it uploaded to Live? After something is on Live can you delete it from Live?

Note that I have the very same problem with this website. I modified a plugin from audioscrobbler for Windows Media Player to update an online list of what I'm listening too. It's cool and all but there is the possibility that it will upload something I'd be embarrassed to have people know about.

posted by greggmanDecember 7, 2005 at 23:05 [ e ]

Good point & lol on the examples :P

posted by ShayDecember 7, 2005 at 23:19 [ e ]

Greg,

You make a good point about, *sensitive* games. Currently I don't think there's a way to mask any particular thing out *for your Live profile*. Kindof a opt-in or opt-out solution. However, it takes about 20 seconds to create a non-live profile (example: GreggmanLive vs GreggManUndead) that you can sign-in as before you run your naughty games if you don't want things uploaded.

posted by TrentDecember 7, 2005 at 23:27 [ e ]

Just for shits and giggles I'll see if I can't post my card here (test):

Oshiri.

posted by TrentDecember 8, 2005 at 17:31 [ e ]

Didn't work apparently.

posted by TrentDecember 8, 2005 at 17:31 [ e ]

AudioScrobbler

Gregg, are you listening to Tiffany again?

posted by RayBDecember 8, 2005 at 18:19 [ e ]

To Trent:

I forgot to add, directed at Trent:
Companies always include a line in their Terms of Service agreements that they reserve the right to change the terms whenever and however they please. So that pretty much invalidates any promises related to personal information collected by them.

posted by RayBDecember 8, 2005 at 18:21 [ e ]

re: Rayb

Your right, the company does maintain the legal right to change policies (this is not uncommon in the industry), but the company also has the legal obligation to inform their users of any changes before they occur. If anything changes, you'll hear about it. Sorry, no behind-your-back legal games going on here. You'll have to look harder to feed your paranoia, because the 360 team really cares about their users of the 360. That team is super passionate about their product, and really have put out the most fantastic console I've ever used (and I've used nearly all of them).

Give it a chance at least guys. Your minds are already closed off and you've never even used it.

posted by TrentDecember 8, 2005 at 18:55 [ e ]

whoa, chill out. Like I said Live is awesome!

It's just interesting to think about the possibilities for abuse, that's all. I'm still going to use it as soon as I get a 360

I actually have a ton of ideas for more things Live should do. I'm sure others have had these ideas. One is that Live should support blogs. There should be a "post this screenshot to my blog" using the Atom or metaweblog API. Live should also support posting your achievements on your blog as an includable side javascript. Like the [Listening To] part on my left column you could have an auto-updated "now playing". Like the Achievements thing MS could define a standard for status so that for example based on how far into a game you are your now playing could say "now playing: Halo 2 - Fighting the Flood".

MS could also define a standard library for getting any info out of a game (the standard library thing would encourage developers to support it vs no standard library means most will avoid it). The standard library would by default upload the data to MSes servers incase the developer / publisher didn't want to deal with running their own but it would be easy to set a different URL to send the data.

For example, a Final Fantasy like game might want to send up every item a player has in their inventory. The player if she's a super Final Fantasy Otaku might want to display her inventory on her blog.

Any games that support insider buying and trading either with real money or game money, it would be cool to be able to auto update your blog with what you are selling and what you want to buy.

Supporting blogs might sound like a stupid ego trip thing but it is in MS's best interest because every blog posting about a game raises that game's google awareness as well as public awareness.

RayB: Actually someone did put in Tiffany the last time I went to karaoke

posted by greggmanDecember 8, 2005 at 23:03 [ e ]

Still MS will know, you're watching TV too much

If you agree to this:
"Except as described in this statement, we will not disclose your personal information outside of Microsoft and its controlled subsidiaries and affiliates without your consent."
you basically agree to let MS collect statistics about your entertainment preferences and about how their system is used by you. This information is very valuable and MS *wants* to know it, otherwise it would have made Live an opt-in instead of an opt-out service. And if they were really interested in privace, some kind of encryption without backdoors would have been implemented (or is there? I don't use Live...)

I don't care if my friends know, I'm watching telly at night. I do care, if a large international company silently assumes, I would consider it my friend, sits itself into my living room and counts, how much TV I watch and how often I listen to mp3.

posted by linuxuserJanuary 10, 2006 at 10:00 [ e ]

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